Kailua lessee gets
debt extension

By Peter Wagner
Star-Bulletin

Kailua businessman Norman Frank has won a 30-day reprieve to make good on $460,000 in unpaid rent and other debts at Kailua Town Center, the nearly vacant commercial complex he moved into last March.

In an agreement disclosed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday, Frank's company, Capital Resources International, will pay lessor Pacific Union of Seventh-Day Adventists the $460,000 by May 17, or vacate the property.

The figure includes $220,000 in back rent and $240,000 toward the approximate $600,000 in repairs to the complex promised under his lease.

Capital Resources filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 11, the day $180,000 in back rent was due under an earlier agreement in a civil lawsuit brought by the church last year.

Under the agreement, Frank was to pay the $180,000 or vacate the property. But the bankruptcy filing protected Capital Resources from its creditors pending resolution of the case.

The church last month asked the federal bankruptcy court to allow Frank's eviction from the 100,000-square-foot complex but the court gave Frank more time to meet his debts after he came up with a $40,000 payment during the proceeding.

Meanwhile, in a separate legal dispute over unpaid rent at his Maunawili home, at 1333 Lopaka Place, Frank is under a deadline to buy the property by Thursday or move out.

Under another agreement reached with the church in a separate lawsuit last year, Frank agreed to buy the house for $450,000 by April 15 or leave by April 19.

According to the church, which also owns the Maunawili property, Frank has paid little rent since moving into the house in 1987 and none since September 1997. Frank claims to have put $200,000 in improvements into the property.

Frank yesterday could not be reached for comment. Attorneys for the church yesterday were hopeful the deal would close.

Before moving into Kailua Town Center last year, Frank operated Capital Resources and a handful of other companies out of the Maunawili home.

Capital Resources says it has contracts with the Azerbaijan government to clean up oil spills in the tiny former Soviet republic.

Affiliated company Trans-Oceanic International is said to be negotiating $112 million in financing from private investors in New Zealand and London to underwrite the deal.